Download or read book Black Swan Green written by David Mitchell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time

Download or read book The Girl who Fell from the Sky written by Heidi W. Durrow and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. A first novel. Reprint.

Download or read book The Craftsman Revealed written by Jane L. Bassett and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A master of composition and technique, De Vries was relatively unknown until the J. Paul Getty Museum's groundbreaking 1999 exhibition, Adriaen de Vries: Imperial Sculptor, which firmly established the artist's reputation and afforded a rare opportunity to study in depth a large group of bronzes. This heavily illustrated volume presents the results of the technical study of twenty-five bronzes from the exhibition. Introductory chapters provide background on the artist and technical methodologies. Subsequent chapters present case studies of individual statues, revealing the methods and materials used in their creation"--Publisher's website.

Download or read book The Universal Home Doctor written by Simon Armitage and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-11-25 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the title implies, Simon Armitage's flesh-and-blood account of numerous personal journeys reads like a private encyclopaedia of emotion and health. Vivid and engaged, the poems range from the rainforests of South America to the deserts of Western Australia, but are set against the ultimate and most intimate of all landscapes, the human body. Equally, the body politic comes into question, through subtle enquiries into Englishness and the idea of home.

Download or read book Sounding the Cape written by Denis Martin and published by African Minds. This book was released on 2013 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an "identity" which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and genres, and social - in this case pseudo-racial - identities. In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin. Musicians interviewed at the dawn of the 21st century confirm that mixture and blending characterise all Cape Town's musics. They also emphasise the importance of a rhythmic pattern particular to Cape Town, the ghoema beat, whose origins are obviously mixed. The study of music demonstrates that the history of Cape Town, and of South Africa as a whole, undeniably fostered creole societies. Yet, twenty years after the collapse of apartheid, these societies are still divided along lines that combine economic factors and "racial" categorisations. Martin concludes that, were music given a greater importance in educational and cultural policies, it could contribute to fighting these divisions and promote the notion of a nation that, in spite of the violence of racism and apartheid, has managed to invent a unique common culture.

Download or read book The Art of Watching Films written by Joseph M. Boggs and published by McGraw-Hill College. This book was released on 2008 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accompanying CD-ROM provides short film clips that reinforce the key concepts and topics in each chapter.

Download or read book African Roots Brazilian Rites written by C. Sterling and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explores how Afro-Brazilians define their Africanness through Candomblé and Quilombo models, and construct paradigms of blackness with influences from US-based perspectives, through the vectors of public rituals, carnival, drama, poetry, and hip hop.

Download or read book The Disney Song Encyclopedia written by Thomas S. Hischak and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-07-29 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Songs written for Disney productions over the decades have become a potent part of American popular culture. Since most Americans first discovered these songs in their youth, they hold a special place in one's consciousness. The Disney Song Encyclopedia describes and discusses hundreds of famous and not-so-famous songs from Disney films, television, Broadway, and theme parks from the 1930s to the present day. Over 900 songs are given individual entries and presented in alphabetical order. The songwriters and original singers are identified, as well as the source of the song and other venues in which it might have been used over the years. Notable recordings of the song are also listed. But most important, the song is described and what makes it memorable is discussed. This is not a reference list but a true encyclopedia of Disney songs. The book also contains a preface describing the criteria for selecting the songs, a glossary of song terms, a list of all the Disney songs and their sources, a songwriter's directory in which every song by each composer/lyricist is listed, a bibliography, a guide to recordings and DVDs of Disney productions, and an index of people and titles.

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick written by Gene D. Phillips and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the director's life and career with information on his films, key people in his life, technical information, themes, locations, and film theory.

Download or read book Disney A to Z written by Dave Smith and published by Hyperion Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes full descriptions of all Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy cartoons; the story of Mickey's birth; the Disney Channel Premiere films and Disney television shows; the Disney parks; Disney Academy Awards and Emmy Awards; the Mouseketeers throughout the years; and details of Disney company personnel and primary actors.

Download or read book Highways and Byways in Sussex written by Edward Verrall Lucas and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book High written by Sebastián Marincolo and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it true that a marijuana high can lead to profound insights, as many users have reported? In his now classic essay Mr. X, anonymously published in 1971, even the famous astronomer Carl Sagan claimed that he owed many invaluable insights for his publications to marijuana. The investigation High. Insights on Marijuana explains in depth the different ways a marijuana high can lead to insights as well as to other mind enhancements, such as the enhancement of episodic memory, pattern recognition, imagination, creativity, introspection, and our ability for empathic understanding. Countless fascinating reports given by marijuana users and cutting-edge research from various areas of knowledge help Marincolo to take our understanding of the marijuana high to a new level. His unusual study is a thoroughly accessible and entertaining interdisciplinary tour de force through the current cognitive sciences, evolutionary psychology, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. High. Insights on Marijuana offers a revolutionary new perspective on the mind-enhancing potential of marijuana and takes his readers to a voyage deep into the high mind.

Download or read book Ghost Rider written by Neil Peart and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2002-06 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. That lack of direction lead him on a 5

Download or read book Bodies and Voices written by Anna Rutherford and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2008 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles investigate representations in literature, both by the colonizers and colonized. Many deal with the effect the dominant culture had on the self image of native inhabitants. They cover areas on all continents that were colonized by European countries.

Download or read book The Night Country written by Stewart O'Nan and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2004-10-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ghost story that begins in everyday tragedy, from a distinctly American master of both forms: a "scary, sad, funny . . . mesmerizing read" (Stephen King) At Midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three that died come back on a last chilling mission among the living. A strange and unsettling ghost story, The Night Country creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet isolated lives of three people changed forever by the accident: Tim, who survived yet lost everything; Brooks, the cop whose guilty secret has destroyed his life; and Kyle's mom, trying to love the new son the doctors returned to her. As the day wanes and darkness falls, one of them puts a terrible plan into effect, and they find themselves caught in a collision of need and desire, watched over by the knowing ghosts. Macabre and moving, The Night Country elevates every small town's bad high school crash into myth, finding the deeper human truth beneath a shared and very American tragedy. As in his highly-prized Snow Angels and A Prayer for the Dying, once again Stewart O'Nan gives us an intimate look at people trying to hold on to hope, and the consequences when they fail.

Download or read book Devonshire Wills written by Charles Worthy and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book St James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture written by Tom Pendergast and published by Saint James Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The millenium-inspired fascination with 20th-century studies cannot be fully satisfied without a comprehensive and scholarly look at popular culture. With its emphasis on ideas, people, events and products that symbolize America, the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture is a cross-curriculum resource that will find use among a wide variety of users. Major topics include: television, movies, theater, art, books, magazines, radio, music, sports, fashion, health, politics, trends, community life and advertising.